Club development focus for women's workshop

Women's club football will take centre stage in a development workshop at the House of European Football in Nyon next week.

The workshop is being organised under the UEFA Knowledge & Information Sharing Scenario (KISS), and follows an inaugural gathering in November which examined how to give continued impetus to women's domestic football throughout Europe.

UEFA has earmarked resources for the nurturing of the female game across the continent through its womenʼs football development programme (WFDP), which was launched last year with the blessing of the UEFA Executive Committee. The programme involves long-term funding from the UEFA HatTrick assistance scheme which provides essential infrastructure and sporting help for UEFA's 53 member associations.

The aim of the February workshop is to determine ways to improve quality within clubs. November's gathering – attended by both the national associations and leading European clubs in the women's sector – focused on minimum standards within clubs which could be attained over a period of five years, including a potential club licensing system for the more developed European FAs. The objective was to offer the associations a detailed road map towards developing their clubs.

This latest workshop will explore important elements that can help propel club development – governance, sporting aspects (youth and senior), finances, marketing and facilities. Association and club representatives, as well as delegates from world football governing body FIFA, will be on hand to deliver specific presentations and recount their experiences and ideas. These will form invaluable contributions towards the overall concept to take women's club football to a higher level.